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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 65 of 133 27 August 2012 at 11:45am | IP Logged |
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2012-08-26 Sonntag| Sondag
Deutsch wdr5_redezeit_20120718.mp3 About scandal in a digital age, and some unexpected effects of digitalisation. A lot of new vocabulary, especially media-related. A lot of it understandable in context, but not all. "Anglicismen"s: smartphone, lynchmob, player...Big Brother (is watching you). wdr5_tischgespraech_20120822_2100.mp3 Direktor der Frankfurter Museen Städell, Schirn und Liebieghaus Max Hollein (22.08.2012) His Austrian accent was commented on. He is from Wien. His accent is not particularly strong though, and his "r" was nothing noteworthy. He spent 6 years in NYC, which may have had some effect on his accent/vocabulary. "Anglicismen"s: cashflow, shopping,"privacy an obsolete cultural norm", Teams, Manager, corporate-citizenship, private banking, Dansk CC days=14 cn=9=ni(niende) 1/9=en niendedel Copenhagencasts. One about seducing (or more generally, charming) Danes. To charm the Mother in Law: Nej hvor er det lækkert. =Wow, that’s so delicious. Må jeg få opskriften……eller er det en hemmelighed?=Can I have the recipe……or is it a secret? Well, it might work I suppose. :) The general phrase: Skal jeg ikke (lige)...? Do you want me to...? (The "lige" doesn't really add meaning, or it might be a bit like adding "just" in English. Would make it sound a bit more Danish probably). Louise pronounced it slowly just so we could hear the component words, but said it was never pronounced like that, and she gave us the rapid (normal) Danish version. I'm slowly learning to accept that Danish sounds just like it sounds, and not in some sort of textbook ideal that I might like it to sound. The sooner I accept that and learn how it really sounds the better. I've learned that lesson to some extent in previous languages, but it's more necessary in Danish than in some others! :) Done most of the vocab in unit 11, but leaving the last page or so until tomorrow, as it contains some fairly high-octane stuff. I'm not formally word-listing most of the Copenhagencast words at the moment (although I do try to memorise them in purely mental fashion), as I've set myself the specific task of attempting to memorise (word-list style) every vocabulary word (and some phrases, etc) in the TYSCD, and I don't want to complicate it. I am a bear of little brain, as Winnie the Pooh says. ~Later: another Copenhagencast:"How much is it", all about numbers+prices. Very useful, especially the pronunciation. Who would have thought that "tredive" would be pronounced something like "tralve" (or maybe it's supposed to be "trathve"). Still difficult, but maybe it will come with repetition. BTW, if I ever write "who knew?", will someone please shoot me. No, seriously, as Bill Hicks used to say. Mind you, Louise defended the weird 20-based system with a completely straight face, as though it were not the practical joke that the Danes play on the rest of the world which it very clearly is. Charm me as much as you want Louise skat, but you aren't getting that one past me! :) General I see there is a debate going on about what percentage of a movie's length you should count in language study time in a challenge. I must admit that getting hung up on numbers like that is one reason why I don't want to do challenges. There are some related reasons I won't go into now. I haven't voted in that thread and won't do, since I'm not a potential challenger. On the more general theme of films and TV programmes, I would say that for me personally, I have realised that they are not a significant part of the language-learning process. I still watch them though (probably not as much as most people on here seem to), but for me they play another rôle: they are another glimpse into the culture whose language I am learning. And they are a sort of "reward" for all the normal slog of language-learning effort I've put in in the past: learning tons of vocabulary, head-splitting grammar, and trying to remember exceptions to rules that I don't even fully know yet. So, they are the icing on the cake, the jam on the sandwich, the cherry in the cocktail :-) (does that even work as a metaphor? It's the best I can do on the fly). They are for sitting back, ideally with a drink of something strong (tea or coffee is fine, but if you twist my arm...), and enjoying. If I happen to learn the odd word here or there, that's a bonus, but that's not why I'm watching them. I probably don't see enough of them for a start, and I can get more out of books, podcasts and audiobooks. But that's just me. On not being hung up on numbers: I had slight reservations even about doing the consistency thread, but at least there the numbers I have chosen are those that will force me to do at least the bare minimum to keep the language-learning process alive. I am careful not to say exactly how many words I attempted to learn, or how much actual time I put in, and I don't keep track of it myself. I have done some things like make a note of how many new words are in each unit, but I don't track my rate of attempting to learn them. Assuming I make it to the end of the book I know roughly how many words I will have attempted to learn, but it won't include for example, those I've picked up from Copenhagencast, or other sources. At one level, I really don't care. When I get more advanced I will start to care in the sense of having a rough idea how many words per page of a novel I can expect to know, for example, and of course I will be pleased when I am not having to look up many words per page, but I hope I don't get too caught- up in counting them, when that time comes, which won't be in the next few days. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6896 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 66 of 133 28 August 2012 at 10:43am | IP Logged |
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I don't like getting hung up on numbers either. I do enjoy the challenge, though: not
really because of the challenge as such, I guess (it kept me going in the very beginning of the month when I really tried to push myself to study a bit more of my 6WC target language and it motivates me a bit to study my lower-priority languages... but in the end, it hasn't really changed my normal language routine or my priorities).... but because I'm able to log my study time quite accurately, get all these nice charts and finally see how much time I spend on various activities (although to get the real picture I would need more than 6 weeks: e.g. in June and July I read a lot whereas during the last month I read hardly anything). Obviously, I knew roughly what kind of language activities I usually devote my time to but being able to see it clearly is a huge added value of 6WC as I may use these statistics to improve my study techniques. About films and TV: for me, they are a significant part of the language-learning process. I think they really helped me to get through the intermediate plateau, to gain better listening comprehension, and to get acquainted with colloquial language. A lot of my English knowledge comes from American movies and TV shows (admittedly, not always of the best quality ;)). However, it may be so as I'm very visually-oriented and really more of a TV person than of a radio person... despite all my efforts and genuine interests, I don't listen a lot to the radio/podcasts/audiobooks. While using TL content with my advanced languages, I probably watch movies/videos/TV for 50%-60% of time, read books/press/articles on the Internet for 30%-45% of time, and spend only miserable 5-10% of TL time on listening... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 67 of 133 28 August 2012 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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2012-08-27 Montag| mandag
Dansk CC days=15 cn=10=ti(tiende) 1/10=en tiendedel Finished the words in unit 11 and started on unit 12. I think I've been concentrating too much on quantity recently and not enough on quality, so I'm going to slow it down a bit and really try to "own" each word. Part of this will be writing out the dialogues, reading them out and then literally translating them. A bit of a mixture of the Prof.'s scriptorium and Iversen's literal translation exercises. I'll go back to the beginning of unit 11 for this. They aren't too bad, but I think the ones in unit 12 are a bit trickier. I'll still do my daily minimum of course, and more unless I'm really pushed for some reason. ~Later: The Copenhagencast "How Much is it?" - numbers. Doing the "Danish only version" where she calls out the numbers (actually prices in Danish, with and without the currency units) and you have to write them down. It's a good exercise. You can look at the pdf transcript to see if you are right. I just did some, as in fact she recommended. Do a few each day.I certainly recognised some, and missed quite a few others, or more usually, got the kroner and missed the øre, or vice-versa. (Yes, it is the same word as "ear"! :) ). -Then a podcast about "Congratulations". Some good phrases, but at rattling speed! Deutsch wdr5_tagesgespraech_20120824_1000.mp3 Aufschub für die Griechen (24.08.2012) Gast Ioannis Skouras, Journalist WDR - Moderation Jürgen Wiebicke wdr5_das_philosophische_radio_20120824_2100.mp3 Mit Bernward Gesang über Utilitarismus und Klimaethik (Sendung vom 24.08.2012) Gast: Bernward Gesang, Philosoph - Moderation: Jürgen Wiebicke WDR5_Zeitzeichen_20120817_0920.mp3 Death of Rudolf Hess A tragic story on so many levels. An interesting new word: "hautnah". "Unwiederbringlich" - CD7.1,2,3,4. Holk returns home, earlier than expected, and makes it clear he needs to tell Christine something, but then doesn't have the guts to tell her. However, she has completely rumbled him, and knows exactly why he's come. The only question is, is he leaving her for Ebba or Birgitte? Then Holk lays into her and tells her exactly what he thinks of her piety, etc (implicitly blaming that for his unfaithfulness). It's a bit of a mess really. :-( Edited by montmorency on 28 August 2012 at 12:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 68 of 133 28 August 2012 at 1:41pm | IP Logged |
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Hi @Julie,
Thanks for your comments. Well, underneath my sixties-ish, hippyish, liberal pretensions, I'm probably as competitive as the next person if you dig deep enough, and that's the problem. I know that I could get (and have sometimes got) taken over by the numbers, and lose sight of the real goal, which is true understanding. Standing back a little, I also appreciate that knowing the statistics of one's studying time, and what is most productive could be useful, and maybe gradually I will adopt to a slightly more numerical approach. As an experiment, if nothing else. I quite like the idea of experiments, and am always trying different things, or new ways of doing old things. I just don't want to be told what to do by a computer programme, hence no anki so far. As for visual versus audio, perhaps it's a generational thing, although in my younger day, when perhaps TV was more of a novelty, I watched enough American and British TV to last me a lifetime! :-) (And I don't want to watch it now dubbed into German or Danish or anything else, thanks! - Can't stand dubbing!). From a British perspective, I suppose it makes me a bit sad that people are watching American and not British TV output, by and large, but that's life. Clearly watching film and TV output is working for some people. One advantage of audio input (e.g. radio or podcasts, or audiobooks) is that you can combine them with certain physical tasks that don't necessarily demand 100% concentration. My classic example would be painting a wall or something like that, or washing-up or not-too-demanding cookery (i.e. all of my cookery!). Having said that, if you are listening to learn, it's best to give it as much attention as you can, so this supposed advantage kind of breaks down. I still like it though. :-) Edited by montmorency on 28 August 2012 at 1:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6896 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 69 of 133 28 August 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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I can't stand dubbing either! I watch dubbed movies (on German TV) very rarely, if I
REALLY want to see them. Pretty often, if I see an interesting (dubbed) movie on German TV, I quickly look up the original title and try to get the original movie (if in English) instead of watching the dubbed version. I don't really know if visual vs. audio is a generational thing (or, to be more precise, if it is a generational thing in my case). Radio was very much present at my home when I was a child, and I also used to listen to audio tapes with fairy tales etc. I had enough audio exposure to get used to it and really enjoy it (and I didn't watch a lot of TV as a child). It seems that my problem is that I don't know what to do with my eyes/the "visual" part of my brain if I'm just listening to something. I lose focus very easily, also in my native language. Depending on my listening setting, I may either fall asleep or start thinking about something else... I truly hate that because I have a bunch of great audio books that I would love to listen to (not to mention some great podcasts). Surprisingly enough, listening + washing-up or doing some other automatic tasks seems to work - I've managed to have completed 10+ hour audiobook in English this way recentlu. I also found it easier to listen to French podcasts while doing some simple photo editing on my computer than while fully focused. Maybe I just have to keep my eyes busy :). All in all, this is strange, as I don't have problems with concentration in general (when I'm not too tired) and I can read a book for 8 hours and forget about the time going by... I would love to enjoy audio input fully! About American vs. British TV: sadly enough, I watch British productions very rarely. This is going to sound very stupid, considering the huge number and variety of British movies, but could you perhaphs recommend some titles/directors (or maybe some websites about British cinema) that could be a good start for me (starting with some mainstream entertainment movies as my comprehension of British English needs some work for sure)? Feel free to ignore this question if it is waaaay too general. :) Sorry for hijacking your log! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 70 of 133 29 August 2012 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
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I'm a serial log-hijacker myself, so don't worry!
On concentrating on audio input: Well, I also sometimes have problems. Sometimes I specifically close my eyes, and really listen intensely to the words, especially when I want to get a better appreciation of the native pronunciation. But at other times, perhaps if I am worried about something, I find I can "tune out" the audio without any problem and my thoughts start wandering off into whatever it is I'm worried about. Or if I am trying to L-R with the English in front of me, if I'm not very careful, I can start to read the English and completely forget about the German even though it's pounding into my ears. (Reading German and listening to German is fine though!). Your experience doing a low-intensity task that involves some visual input is probably about right - like my painting a wall I suppose! :) Probably weeding the garden or something like that could be good as well. Maybe drawing or painting, but they might become a bit too intense if you get really into it. I'm probably not the best person to ask about British films or TV, as I've been concentrating on foreign films, and (where possible) foreign TV as well! And sadly, it has to be said, the quality of British TV these days is not great. I think it has suffered from quantity at the expense of quality. We probably had a golden age, or a few golden ages, in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Well, a few thoughts, more or less at random: the "Sherlock" series is quite fun. Sherlock Holmes brought up to date. "Hustle" - about a group of confidence tricksters (con-men or hustlers). There have been quite a few series. It's very silly, but in an entertaining way. Factual: if you like the outdoors, any of the Julia Bradbury walking series are good. You'd learn a bit about English geography and a bit of history probably. There are some set in the Lake District; some following old railway lines, and other themes. She's done some outside the UK as well. On a similar theme "Coast" is a long, occasional series exploring the British coast- line. Older stuff: if you can get hold of it, the original 1980s TV series of "Brideshead Revisited" (based on an Evelyn Waugh novel) is brilliant. It was made by Granada TV, an ITV company - ITV was quite good in those days, but it has gone downhill. It's in 13 parts and stars Jeremy Irons, Diana Quick and Anthony Andrews: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083390 Actually, any of the (usually BBC) "period dramas" will probably be worth watching. I can't think of any names for the time being, but things based on Jane Austen, and that sort of thing I mean. :) (Or Charles Dickens). I don't know if this is of any help: http://www.bfi.org.uk You might want to browse the BBC TV schedules. http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv (Choose a channel and click on "full schedule") BBC4 tends to have interesting documentaries, foreign films or TV, and a few interesting oddball things. BBC3 seems to be a bit rubbish, but I do like Family Guy :) (not British of course...) BBC2 occasionally has something worth watching, but the only thing I watch is University Challenge and sometimes Newsnight. BBC1 ... occasionally there will be a good series on here (e.g. "Hustle"), but they seem few and far between. And those are the best channels :) Edited by montmorency on 29 August 2012 at 1:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 71 of 133 29 August 2012 at 9:58pm | IP Logged |
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2012-08-28 Dienstag| Tirsdag
Dansk CC days=16 cn=11=elleve (elvte) >10 words unit 12. Taking it more slowly and surely. Words from unit 12 (tolv, or the tolvte unit)) , and as mentioned, taking it a bit more slowly and surely. A nice word, "fortælling (-en, er)" = story, easy to remember as in "telling a story", which reminds me how important storytelling is to the human race. After eating, keeping warm and reproducing, I'd think telling stories (especially around a fire) is one of those fundamental human traits by which we teach, learn, and entertain each other, and whatever else changes, that will not, even if we do it in new ways. In a Danish context, one thinks of course of Hans Andersen and Karen Blixen. This unit is about "Alison" going to language classes. She is not a beginner, so she won't be going to a Bygynderhold (-et), "et hold" being a class, which makes me think of a class of unruly teenagers being penned or "held" in. :-) Other words are not so easy to make connections or associations with. "stave (-ede,-et)", to spell, well, I could think of the musical stave, and the letters of the notes spelling out "FACE" or "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour", depending on whether it's the lines or the spaces I suppose. :) But what do you do with "volde (-te -t)" = "to cause"? Well, I suppose we could think of Lord Voldemort causing Harry Potter a lot of grief. Høy! It seem that we language learners just can't escape from that lad can we!? We meet the word "skift" again, this time in the form of "skiftes til", meaning to take it in turns. Before we had "skifte en ble", to "change a nappy", and it's not that far from "change" to "shift", e.g. to "shift gears" or to "change gears". In this case, one could think of "changing about" for "take it in turns". ("ble" for nappy is easy - "bleargh!" :-) ). "skiftes" looks like a passive form. No doubt that is explained somewhere. Kind of getting interested in a new mini-project inspired by various posts here. Still Danish-related, and actually nothing new, no big deal, but something I haven't tried before, or at least not for years and not with the tips and knowledge I have acquired since joining HTLAL, so it could be fun. I think I'll write about it in a separate offline file, which I might post later. Just to give it a handle, I'll refer to it as "Monty's-super-Secret-project-X-take-over-the-universe, or something nice and discrete like that, but maybe "Monty's new toy" would be more appropriate, but actually, I've just realised the right name is simply "Harry". (And you will be really underwhelmed when you read what it is, so no need for any excitement :) ). ~Later: and I've now thought of a sub-project: "Palmer". (I'm a Len Deighton fan; ok he wasn't called Harry Palmer in the books, but he was in the films, and I think it had Len Deighton's blessing. :) ). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4821 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 72 of 133 30 August 2012 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
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2012-08-29 Mittwoch| onsdag
Dansk CC days=17 cn=12=tolv (tolvte) >10 words from unit 12. A difficult day as I was out walking in the country with Fru M. and a group and it rained all day. I took a list of words to learn and looked at it when possible, and in the car there and back, and will consolidate this later. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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